


Breath of life

by Ruta



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Aftermath, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Feels, Introspection, Season/Series 07 Speculation, Slow Burn, post 6x13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 17:10:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20246362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruta/pseuds/Ruta
Summary: Bellamy's sunken eyes find hers and in the silence of the room the roar of her thoughts becomes deafening.The concern is still evident, it is a ravenous wolf, but so is the gratitude with which he stares at her and that fluid mobility that seems to completely transform his face, softening it, making him younger. It creates the impression that the years of separation were just an unpleasant parenthesis, a sad chapter that has already been set aside in the light of new, more exciting ones."Thank you," he says and that simple word contains everything he wants to tell her, but for which there is no time, there is never time. He is thanking her for Octavia, thanking her for having survived, thanking her for coming back. For being there.(7x01 speculation)





	Breath of life

Something feels off.

Clarke starts running as soon as she sees them.

Bellamy is in the queue and it seems like he's barely able to stand. He doesn't look injured, but he might as well be from the way he drags his feet, his back bent like that of a sad, old man ready to be put down. He walks with his head down, looking defeated and worn-out, as if the weight of the world he carries on his shoulders were suddenly too much to bear. It is an image that shakes her deeply, breaking her heart. Almost without realizing it she accelerates the pace, Murphy at her heels.

"What happened?"

At the same time, Murphy asks, looking around, "Where is Octavia?"

The reaction is instantaneous and is sufficient confirmation of her worst assumptions.

Bellamy lifts his head abruptly, like a hunted and trapped animal. He doesn't need to say anything. Everything she needs to know is right there, plain as day. It is in the folds of his face hardened by pain, by anger. It is in the dark and anguished light of his gaze.

For a moment it seems that he wants to speak, but the moment passes and before she can approach him, he walks past her, Echo a few steps away and immediately behind him.

Clarke follows them with her eyes, her chest compressed in a stranglehold that has not left her since her mother's death and that now seems somehow different, if possible even more suffocating. She can't think about it, not now. (It should have been a time of peace, they should have to hang up their weapons and start living, no longer surviving. Not yet, apparently. There is always another war, there is always a new enemy, there is always someone to save or protect and she feels so infinitely lonely, tired down in the marrow of her bones. She'd been fighting for years and she's sick of it.)

She turns to Gabriel and in a tone of command, almost rudely, says, "Tell me what happened."

*

She finds him half an hour later.

Leaving the room that she and Bellamy share, Echo nods to her. Clarke squeezes her elbow in return before entering.

She doesn't know when it started exactly. This strange exchange of gestures between them, this mute complicity that is partly respect and partly acceptance. They could hate each other, instead they chose not to do it for reasons that both prefer not to expose and that are all reconciled in the man behind the door.

Bellamy is at the end of the bed. He sits with his head in his hands.

She has never seen him so desperate. (It's a lie. It has the nebulous appearances of a dream, sometimes elusive, sometimes with glimpses of absolute clarity, but she distinctly remembers his voice in her head before she killed Josephine. It is no coincidence that the weapon that she used was an axe. She remembers the imperceptible tremor that ran through his hands when he pushed them away from her face, telling her to breathe. She remembers the wonder and relief in his shining eyes, the tenderness with which he looked at her, with which he touched her, the strength of his embrace that restored the world to reality, restored its stability. She remembers and cannot forget. This could become a problem.)

She kneels before him and gently, with extreme delicacy, puts an hand on his knee. It is enough to collect him from any open-eyed nightmare he was having.

"Clarke." He blinks once, twice. He doesn't seem confused by her presence, but nevertheless disoriented. It is as if he were trying to remember how to function normally, as if losing Octavia had hit him and upset him to the point of damaging him physically as well as emotionally.

A part of her, selfish and petty, wonders if this was the case for her too, when he had thought she was dead. The thought that he suffered because of her should be hateful, but inexplicably has a reassuring side. It is the proof that he cares, that all is forgiven between them.

"I lost her," he says and his voice is low and hoarse as if he screamed for hours. "She's gone and one of the last things I told her was that she was no longer my responsibility."

She hugs him because there is no other comfort she can offer and to hide the tears she feels pressing against her eyelashes, insistent and inopportune.

"We will find her," she promises, and he holds her tighter. She hears him sigh against her shoulder. "We will find her, wherever she is. You will save her and I will help you."

She loosens the embrace with a slowness that clashes deeply with the impetuous urgency with which she started it. Since when did touching him become a physical need, as vital as breathing? Since when exactly did it get back to being as easy and familiar as a habit? Since when did she become addicted to the warmth of his body, to the feel of his beard against the skin of her neck?

Precisely because she can't help it, she brushes his cheek with her fingers and wonders what it would be like to put her forehead against his.

"We will begin the research in an hour. I assemble a group. Take the opportunity to rest a little."

He places his hand on top of hers and intertwines them with another sigh. The shadow of torment has not disappeared completely, it will not disappear until Octavia is safe, but has lightened.

"I don't think I remember how to do it anymore," he says too seriously to be considered a joke.

She nods, standing up. "Yeah, I can understand that."

She's about to walk away, but this time he's the one who won't let her. They have always been tactile to each other and in times of difficulty, of conflict, mutual need has always emerged for moments like this. He grabs her by her wrist and when she turns and crosses his gaze, she must pry up every bit of self-control so as not to hug him again. Or worse, do something much more stupid, a madness from which she couldn't go back just ad easily.

Bellamy's sunken eyes find hers and in the silence of the room the roar of her thoughts becomes deafening. The concern is still evident, it is a ravenous wolf, but so is the gratitude with which he stares at her and that fluid mobility that seems to completely transform his face, softening it, making him younger. It creates the impression that the years of separation were just an unpleasant parenthesis, a sad chapter that has already been set aside in the light of new, more exciting ones.

"Thank you," he says and that simple word contains everything he wants to tell her, but for which there is no time, there is never time. He is thanking her for Octavia, thanking her for having survived, thanking her for coming back. For being there.

"Octavia is your family and you are part of mine."

"You are my family too."

It is not exactly a contraction, it is more like a piercing, as if someone had treacherously slipped a knife between her ribs. And despite everything it is a pain that she accepts with pleasure and that is not true pain.

Before she can control herself, she touches his hair. It is not her imagination nor the fruit of futile hopes when she hears his sharp intake of breath. The pressure of his hand that has now moved to her waist. The ductile expressions of the face, the dilation of the pupils, the possessive movements of the hands. It is _true_, it is _real_ and it is _entirely theirs_. It would be easy to indulge in the moment and the temptation is impossibly sweet as it is becoming exhausting to resist it. She has to. She can't risk it.

Instead, she kisses his forehead as her hand slips behind his neck. "Rest," she murmurs wearily and heads out the door before he can answer or stop her.

Bellamy's breath and the intensity of his eyes haunt her even after she is alone.

She doesn't remember when she last slept. She recognizes the nervous energy that passes through her like adrenaline. She would like to sleep, at the same time the idea terrifies her. She's afraid of what awaits her lurking among the comfortable walls of unconsciousness.

This is no time to think about it. There is a search team to organize. She has to check Madi's condition. Still she lingers, stopping in the empty corridor. She closes her eyes. Another moment. Just a second stolen from the frenzy that is their life. She touches her lips with her fingertips.

People talking. The noise of footsteps. She starts walking again.

_When_, she thinks hopelessly, helplessly, _has his breath become the breath of life?_


End file.
